Archive for the ‘History of Japan’ Category

A Japanese nobleman prepares to kill himself. Why? Because he’d rather die than try to make sense of Japanese history using conventional sources!

The answer is Powell History’s “First History” method! The first lecture of my new course on the First History of Japan for Adults will be available FREE as a podcast, exclusively on Facebook, as of this Saturday!

Chris Martenson, one of the experts I respect most on the topic of the on-going global economic crisis, has some thoughts about how to integrate Japan’s energy crisis within a broader framework. Here’s his article:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

As many people are aware, this, along with other essential features of the current Japanese constitution (such as the renunciation of the divinity of the Japanese emperor) were imposed on Japan by the conquering power of the United States following World War II.

In his book Nothing Less than Victory historian John David Lewis explores how the overwhelming use of force brought about the enduring peace with Japan, and one can hardly argue with the results of American policy when assessing the past 60 years, with Japan apparently serving as a loyal subordinate of the United States since the beginning of the Cold War.

But what if we expand the context of our apperception somewhat to a longer continuum of Japan’s past, present and future? Why is it that geo-political expert George Friedman predicts war between the United States and Japan by the middle of the 21st century in his book The Next Hundred Years?

A meaningful prediction of Japan’s conduct through the next hundred years must be grounded in a proper assessment of Japan’s last hundred years, especially its cultural response to the geopolitical supremacy of first Europe and now the United States. In 1HFA5-1: The History of Japan, we will explore how Japan responded to the arrival of America’s “black ships” under the command of Commodore Perry in 1854 by trying to overturn that supremacy. Then, one hundred years later still, during the American occupation of 1945-52, the Japanese struggled to define a new path by accepting it. Why then, one hundred years later–by 2045 to be sure–as Friedman predicts, will Japan have likely returned to being an belligerent nation once again?

Japan certainly appears quiescent. What happens, however, when it is forced to declare national bankruptcy within the next five years, due to a debt problem that far exceeds that of the United States and that can no longer be evaded? What happens when Japanese industry cannot get the raw materials it needs because of expanded wars in the Middle East? What happens when these factors combined with Japan’s demographic implosion force the Japanese to choose between an even more acute subordinacy in world affairs and the “glorious” hope of a Japan reborn through the “way of the warrior”? The most essential traits of Japanese culture in the evolving context of American supremacy make a return to war almost inevitable! Find out why in 1HFA 5-1: The “First History” of Japan for Adults. (Pre-registration specials available until April 19.)

Of course, anyone who is interested is welcome to participate. So here is the “pop quiz”…

In 1878, Japan was desperate to modernize its army to catch up with the West. It had originally turned to Britain for help in developing its navy, and France for help in developing its army. Now, however, it shunned the French model that it had been following since the mid-nineteenth century and adopted another. Whose model was it and why did the Japanese adopt it?